This last fact was not, of course, in Horikawa’s confession.  But the dread of it was there.  The valet had come to fear Shibo.  He was convinced in his shrinking heart that the man meant to get rid of him.  It was under some impulse of self-protection that he had written the statement.

Shibo heard the confession read without the twitching of a facial muscle.  He shrugged his shoulders, accepting the inevitable with the fatalism of his race.

“He weak.  He no good.  He got yellow streak.  I bossum,” was his comment.

“Did you kill him?” asked the Chief.

“I killum both—­Cunnin’lam and Horikawa.  You kill me now maybe yes.”

Officers led him away.

Phyllis Cunningham came up to Kirby and offered him her hand.  “You’re hard on James.  I don’t know why you’re so hard.  But you’ve cleared us all.  I say thanks awf’ly for that.  I’ve been horribly frightened.  That’s the truth.  It seemed as though there wasn’t any way out for us.  Come and see us and let’s all make up, Cousin Kirby.”

Kirby did not say he would.  But he gave her his strong grip and friendly smile.  Just then his face did not look hard.  He could not tell her why he had held his cousin on the grill so long, that it had been in punishment for what he had done to a defenseless friend of his in the name of love.  What he did say suited her perhaps as well.

“I like you better right now than I ever did before, Cousin Phyllis.  You’re a good little sport an’ you’ll do to ride the river with.”

Jack could not quite let matters stand as they did.  He called on Kirby that evening at his hotel.

“It’s about James I want to see you,” he said, then stuck for lack of words with which to clothe his idea.  He prodded at the rug with the point of his cane.

“Yes, about James,” Kirby presently reminded him, smiling.

“He’s not so bad as you think he is,” Jack blurted out.

“He’s as selfish as the devil, isn’t he?”

“Well, he is, and he isn’t.  He’s got a generous streak in him.  You may not believe it, but he went on your bond because he liked you.”

“Come, Jack, you’re tryin’ to seduce my judgment by the personal appeal,” Kirby answered, laughing.

“I know I am.  What I want to say is this.  I believe he would have married Esther McLean if it hadn’t been for one thing.  He fell desperately in love with Phyllis afterward.  The odd thing is that she loves him, too.  They didn’t dare to be above-board about it on account of Uncle James.  They treated him shabbily, of course.  I don’t deny that.”

“You can hardly deny that,” Kirby agreed.

“But, damn it, one swallow doesn’t make a summer.  You’ve seen the worst side of him all the way through.”

“I dare say I have.”  Kirby let his hand fall on the well-tailored shoulder of his cousin.  “But I haven’t seen the worst side of his brother Jack.  He’s a good scout.  Come up to Wyoming this fall an’ we’ll go huntin’ up in the Jackson Hole country.  What say?”